“We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” – Warren Buffett

“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.” – James Hansen (The Godfather of global warming alarmism and former NASA climate chief)

Now it is reported that just days ago German Green Party co-founder (later turned socialist) and former German Homeland Minister Otto Schily has come out to warn Swiss citizens against voting yes on the project, reminding them that Germany’s Energiewende (transition to green energies) is not the success it is often claimed to be, and that it has in fact turned into a 25 billion euro a year disaster.

Schily held the top position in Germany’s Homeland Ministry in the country’s Socialist/Green coalition government led by Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. He is regarded as one of the country’s most respected elderly politicians and statesmen.

According to the Basler Zeitung, Schily wrote a letter to Christoph Blocher, where he judged the Energiewende to be an “economic, ecological and social disaster” and so urged Swiss citizens to vote no.

The rightwing Swiss SVP party, led by Blocher, is leading the campaign against the green energy transformation project put forth by Swiss President Doris Leuthard of the centrist Christian CVP party. Both Schily and Blocher were Homeland ministers at the same time in their respective countries in the 2000s and are reported to maintain light contact.

The Basler Zeitung reports: “The costs of the Energiewende have grown to over 25 billion euros annually. As a result consumer electricity bills have risen year after year.”

Socially unjust

Schily wrote that Germany’s green energies are also “extremely socially unjust” because they force low income consumers to pay more money into the pockets of wealthy wind and solar park operators – in a classic redistribution from the bottom up.

Jobs-killer, done nothing for the climate

Moreover, the Basler Zeitung writes that the Energiewende has scarred Germany’s natural landscape, has probably cost more jobs than it created, and has “contributed nothing to climate policy as it hoped to do“. Schily advised Swiss citizens “not to repeat the far reaching energy policy of the German Energiewende“.

German CO2 emissions rising instead of falling

The Basler Zeitung also cites an “expert team” by McKinsey consulting group, which not long ago found that the German energy policy has fallen far short of its aims: “Emissions of climate-harmful carbon dioxide are not going down, but rather are increasing, as is power consumption even though it was supposed to go down because of efficiency measures.”

The Basler Zeitung adds: “a collapse of the power supply threatens when the remaining German nuclear power plants are taken offline over the coming years“.

In a recently released video interview by journalist Jörg Rehmann, University of Magdeburg economics professor Joachim Weimann explains why renewable energies have been a terrible idea for Germany so far.

Recently a high ranking expert commission set up by the German government even sharply criticized the German Energiewende (transition to renewable energies), saying it was leading the country down the wrong path. But as Prof. Weimann explains, the commission’s results fell on deaf ears.

Weimann starts the interview by explaining that the target of the Energiewende is to replace carbon-dioxide-emitting fossil fuels in order to protect our climate. One instrument used to achieve that target was Cap and Trade, in combination with the Energiewende, which Weimann says has not worked well at all. The U. of Magdeburg professor says that every cut that gets achieved in Germany gets offset elsewhere, and so net CO2 gets saved at all.

Weimann says that over the years policymakers promised and obstinately insisted that renewables were the way to go, and so ended up putting themselves in a position of which it is now impossible to back out. What leading politician is going to step forward and tell us that it was all a big mistake? “We find ourselves in quite a bind, says Weimann.

Weimann recommends that citizens step up and tell their leaders that what is currently happening is not in their interest, and that they need to exert influence media reporting on the issue. Weimann says:

It is very very difficult. Currently we have over 1000 citizens intiatives against wind power in Germany, yet they practically go unmentioned in media reporting. Compared to the resistance to nuclear energy, it is a crass disproportion. This shows us just how difficult it is to bring the issue to the forefront.”

Weimann hopes that the protests will grow until a critical mass is reached, and can no longer be ignored.

The professor points out that for years a number of institutions and experts have shown that the feed-in act is not functioning properly, that it wastes resources, and is bad policy that is having no impact on climate protection. He adds that the feed-in act entails extremely high costs, not only in terms of capital but also in terms of damage to the country’s landscape. “That means we are producing costs, and no yields. That is not good policy,” says Weimann.

Policymakers, in Weimann’s view, have long been ignoring what the scientific data and experts have told us with respect to renewable energies, but that they are refusing to back out it because they are so far deep into it and that it would be too embarrassing to do so.

Public kept in the dark by media, policymakers

According to Weimann, 80% of the German population are still in favor of renewable energies because they are not aware of the near zero-impact it is having on CO2 emissions and because they are poorly informed. It is in fact only when a wind park gets proposed nearby does a citizen really begin to get interested in what really is at stake and finds out what the true implications are. “Then they suddenly recognize the nonsense that is in fact happening.”

In Weimann’s view, renewable energy topics and calculations are far too complicated for the average citizen to deal with when they don’t feel they have to.

Total destruction of our landscape

Weimann notes that according to the Ministry of Environment, wind and solar energy in 2016 made up only 3.3% of Germany’s primary energy supply and that so far it represents only a “thimble” of the energy that is needed. And “when you compare it to the cost needed for it, not only financial, but also in terms of the burdens to the citizens who have these energy systems next door, we have to say it is first totally disproportional, and secondly that if we wish to meet our targets using wind, it would mean the total destruction of our landscape.”

So far only 3.3% of our primary energy need is being supplied by wind (28,000 turbines so far) and solar. Weimann asks us to imagine what it would take to reach the 95% target. He says the entire German landscape would be profoundly and fundamentally transformed into one massive industrial park that would lose all its attraction. In short: It’s a policy calamity.

Those were just some of Weimann’s comments and claims in just the first 17 minutes of the interview. More on this soon.

What “Community” Wind Farms are really like

Australia has its own “community” wind farm at Leonard’s Hill in Victoria.

Known as “Hepburn Wind”, it was set up by a bunch of smart Alecs who pulled up in Mercs and Beemers one day and decided to impose their brand of “groovy” corporate tyranny on a tight-knit little community who had no idea what was coming.

The people behind it couldn’t care less about the impact on ordinary people – they’re “saving the planet” – and the suffering of those trying to live next to their little monuments is a sacrifice that the backers are more than willing to make – of course they are – they all live in plush digs in the quiet, leafy suburbs of Melbourne, 120km away.

If you think the stories of Hepburn Wind’s victims are any less tragic than the stories at Fairhaven, think again. Here are just two of the many tragic victims at Leonard’s Hill.

These long suffering souls have Simon Holmes a Court to thank for their endless, daily misery.

Simon has been running around like the proverbial headless chook over the last couple of months. Apparently, Simon is very worried about what a Coalition government will do for his plans for another “Community” wind farm.

He’s had a go at trying to ingratiate himself with SA’s favourite Greek, Nick Xenophon and – when his smarmy overtures failed – he resorted to veiled threats about what opposing wind power would mean to Nick’s political future. Nick politely showed him the door.

Not content with that little effort, Slimin’ Simon has tried to worm his way into the long suffering Macarthur community. He was all “sweetness and light” in his correspondence with Annie Gardner – Simon wanted to “visit” so he could “experience” what it was like to live next a “real” wind farm.

The ploy lasted just as long as it took Annie to rumble him and put terms to him about his “visit” that included making sure he came with Liberal MPs, Craig Kelly, Chris Back and Angus Taylor in tow – and that there would be full media coverage, including Graham Lloyd from The Australian – for the duration of his “farm stay”.

Needless to say, Simon has gone quiet on that score.

STT has a tip for our Macarthur readers – if he turns up – lock the doors and windows. He’ll eventually go away.

And STT has a couple of tips for Simon – worry less about your plans to put together another community atrocity – and worry more about what happens when the Coalition starts investigating the REC fraud.

The Clean Energy Regulator might be sitting on their hands at the minute, but give it a week or two. The new head boy has already signalled he’s not going to turn a blind eye to REC fraud. And STT hears the REC fraud story is about to run in a number of major papers. But remember folks – you heard it here first.

Hepburn Wind is in the same league as Acciona’s Waubra wind farm. STT’s seen work from independent acoustic experts that shows Hepburn’s operation does not and can not comply with the noise conditions of its planning consent. Collecting RECs when in breach of State law – for eg, the noise conditions of a planning consent – is unlawful.

So, Simon – you might want to worry more about chickens coming home to roost at Hepburn – rather than running about like one with its head removed – using your considerable “charm” to pressure Senators and MPs, and trying to inveigle yourself at Macarthur.

Simon – the “game” is over – after Saturday, the grown ups will be back in charge. The end is nigh.

When people turn on wind power, it’s a one-way proposition: they never, ever worship these things again.

And when the convert was among those who first championed the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time, they don’t just quietly fall out of love, they tend to become the loudest critics of all; a bit like reformed smokers berating their old smoking buddies for lighting up.

One character who fits that mould is co-founder of the German Greens, Otto Georg Schily; who has just joined the growing throngs of Germans who now recognise the country’s maniacal obsession with massively subsidised wind and solar power as “an economic, social and ecological disaster”.

Germany’s Energiewende “An Economic, Social and Ecological Disaster”, Writes Top German Socialist!
No Tricks Zone
Pierre Gosselin
19 May 2017

In a referendum slated for this coming Sunday, Swiss citizens are being called to vote on a national energy strategy…

“The study suggested that the former group’s sleeping was directly impacted by the operation of the turbines. It is believed to be the first study to show a relationship between the wind farms and what the journal calls the “important clinical indicators of health, including sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, and mental health”. -Irish Examiner

Let the precedent spread far and wide to rid the world of these 16th Century industrial wind-monsters that wreak so much damage to people’s lives, the environment and to the health of the economies they reside.

The Irish High Court has just handed down a decision holding German wind turbine manufacturer, Enercon liable in noise nuisance in a claim pursued by 7 families whose lives and livelihoods have been thoroughly and mercilessly destroyed by incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound.

A report on the decision follows below, but first we’ll start where it all started back in 2013.